DOVEADM-REBUILD(1)

💖 DOVEADM-REBUILD(1) — bestie edition 💖

okay so this is doveadm-rebuild, from the Dovecot manual, and she's here to rebuild stuff. Sit down, grab a boba, we're doing this. 🧋

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✨ NAME ✨

doveadm-rebuild — commands related to rebuilding various aspects of mails matching a given search query. rebuild era 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] rebuild <command> [-S
socket_path] -A search_query

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] rebuild <command> [-S
socket_path] -F file search_query

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] rebuild <command> [-S
socket_path] --no-userdb-lookup search_query

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] rebuild <command> [-S
socket_path] -u user search_query

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

rebuild attachments is the command, and what it does is rebuild attachment presence. That's the whole vibe. And doveadm(1) will print the message's uid for every single match. 💖

When you use it with the -A or -u wildcard options, doveadm(1) prints the fields username and uid for each matching message instead. Not me getting extra fields... 😭

Okay so the four forms, bestie, in order:

1. In the first form, doveadm(1) will execute the rebuild action for all users. everybody. the whole group chat. 👑
2. In the second form, the command is performed for all users listed in the given file. 📄
3. In the third form, it's performed for the user contained in the USER environment variable. 🌱
4. In the last form, only matching mails of the given user(s) will be rebuilt. 🎯

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⭐ GLOBAL OPTIONS ⭐

These are the global doveadm(1) options, and yes, you need them:

• -D — enables verbosity and debug messages. the receipts 👀
• -O — do not read any config file, just use defaults. The dovecot_storage_version setting defaults to the latest version, but you can override it with -o. no config, no problems? (it's giving chaos but okay 💀)
• -k — preserve the entire environment for doveadm, not just the import_environment setting. main character energy, keep your whole vibe.
• -v — enables verbosity, including a progress counter. we love a progress bar 🫶
• -i instance-name — if you're running multiple Dovecot instances, pick the config file based on this instance name. See the instance_name setting for more info. 🏠
• -c config-file — read configuration from the given config-file. By default it first reads the config socket, and then falls back to /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf. You can also point this to the config socket of some instance running a compatible version. 💅
• -o setting=value — overrides the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf and from the userdb with the given value. To override multiple settings, you can specify the -o option multiple times. stack 'em. ✨
• -f formatter — specifies the formatter for formatting the output. The supported formatters are:
  • flow — prints each line with key=value pairs.
  • json — prints a JSON array of JSON objects.
  • pager — prints each key: value pair on its own line and separates records with a form feed character (^L).
  • tab — prints a table header followed by tab separated value lines.
  • table — prints a table header followed by adjusted value lines.

This command uses by default the output formatter flow (without the key= prefix). no cap. 🌈

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -A — if the -A option is present, the command will be performed for all users. Using this option in combination with system users from userdb { driver = passwd } is not recommended, because it contains also users with a lower UID than the one configured with the first_valid_uid setting. ⚠️ When the SQL userdb module is used, make sure that the userdb_sql_iterate_query setting matches your database layout. When using the LDAP userdb module, make sure that the userdb_fields setting and the userdb_ldap_iterate_fields setting match your LDAP schema. Otherwise doveadm(1) will be unable to iterate over all users. 😭
• -F file — execute the command for all the users in the file. This is similar to the -A option, but instead of getting the list of users from the userdb, they're read from the given file. The file contains one username per line. 📝
• --no-userdb-lookup — do not perform userdb lookup. Use the USER environment variable to specify the username. 🙈
• -S socket_path — the option's argument is either an absolute path to a local UNIX domain socket, or a hostname and port (hostname:port), in order to connect to a remote host via a TCP socket. This allows an administrator to execute doveadm(1) mail commands through the given socket. 🔌
• -u user/mask — run the command only for the given user. It's also possible to use '*' and '?' wildcards (e.g. -u *@example.org). wildcard slay. 💫

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💜 ARGUMENTS 💜

• search_query — resets the attachment indicator for messages matching this search query. See doveadm-search-query(7) for the details. 🔍

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🌟 EXAMPLE 🌟

Rebuild user bob's attachment status:

doveadm rebuild attachments -u bob ALL

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2
3

look at those uids go 🎀

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🫶 REPORTING BUGS 🫶

Found a bug? Bestie, report it — including your doveconf -n output — to the Dovecot Mailing List ⟨dovecot@dovecot.org⟩. Info about reporting bugs lives at: ⟨https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html⟩ 🐛

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

doveadm(1)

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and that's the whole page, bestie — go rebuild something iconic. ✨

signing off: this was f979264, from April 2026, and it's the DOVEADM-REBUILD(1) girlies' era. 💅👑